


Bring Them Home

by thor20



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce done fucked up, Comic Book Science, First Kiss, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Outer Space, Unresolved Sexual Tension, gays in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 19:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15565173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thor20/pseuds/thor20
Summary: Thor thinks that the people of Asgard are gone. Bruce believes otherwise; he has to, because the dead look in Thor’s eyes is becoming too much to bear.Among the stars, the graveyard of an empire awaits.Written for Thorbruce Week, Days 4 and 5: Touch and Stars.





	Bring Them Home

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on my phone, so sorry if the formatting is a bit wonky. If you've read my fic "To the Edge of Night," some parts at the beginning might seem similar. This fic doesn't take place in that same universe, I just stole some things from my own work :/. Enjoy!

_“I’ve got you, okay?” Thor shouts._

_He brandishes Stormbreaker and flails, helplessly, in the vacuum of space. No gravity; no purchase. “I’ve got you, Bruce!”_

_But Bruce drifts, further and further away. His lips twitch, forming Thor’s name, but in his delirium no sound comes out. His breath fogs the inside of his mask._

_"No,_  no!" __

* * *

Thor lives with his soul outside his body.  

It shines bright and gleaming in the lines of his smile and the flash of his eyes; it sparks visibly along his skin. His soul is evident in every quirk, every twitch, every broad gesture and delicate adjustment. It’s a sharp contrast to Bruce’s own soul - driven deep within him like a railroad spike. 

And because Thor’s soul is outside his body, it bruises easily. Far, far too easily. 

Bruce knows firsthand that Thor’s temper is literally godlike. He has felt the stifling steel of a thunderstorm building in the skies, and then walked to the next room to see Thor cursing at the coffee machine, poking it with Stormbreaker to threaten it into compliance. He has seen Thor watching CNN and, after the headlines about the Dusting became too much to bear, fry the TV with a bolt of lightning.  

(Technology seems to bear the brunt of Thor’s violence. Which is good. It means Bruce can sit beside him without fear after the TV starts smoking and put an arm around his shoulders, because Thor needs touch to ground him sometimes, to keep him from taking Stormbreaker and smashing through the roof to take to the skies.) 

These days he is quieter. But his soul still bruises. 

 

“In the mirror,” whispers Thor - and pauses. 

They sit side-by-side on the edge of Thor’s bed - untouched, pristine, even after nearly a month in the Compound. As undisturbed in the moonlight as new-fallen snow. Thor makes it crisply each morning and leaves to wander the halls; were it not for Stormbreaker propped against the nightstand, Bruce would think that the room had never been lived in. 

He puts a reassuring hand on Thor’s shoulder. 

Thor swallows, the lines of his throat stark as cut-paper shadow. “In the mirror,” he starts again, “I look like my father.” 

Bruce’s breath leaves him. 

“Well,” he says softly. “I think you look like Thor. You may have heard of him. Big, tall, handsome god of thunder. The resemblance is uncanny.” 

His wry joke works; the corners of Thor’s lips twitch, and he lifts his gaze. His eyes are mismatched, the fake one a nearly orange hazel and the other the blue of a frozen winter sky. The sight freezes the air in Bruce’s lungs for a brief moment, and it’s then that he realizes he called Thor _handsome._ He hides his brief mortification with a chuckle, and bumps Thor’s shoulder with his own. Thor nudges back. Bruce looks down at his hands, at the moonlight dancing over them. 

After a long, infinite silence, Thor speaks again. “I’m the last, you know.” 

Bruce’s head jerks up. 

“The last Asgardian,” he says quietly. Whatever levity Bruce managed to inject into their conversation has vanished. “They’re gone - all of them. Thanos blew the ship to smithereens.” 

He sniffs. “I thought I could start over,” whispers Thor. “I - I thought we could build a new Asgard, a new place to live - build a new legacy. But now we can’t.” Thor swallows and looks up at the ceiling, and closes his eyes, as if bracing himself for a blow. “There’s nothing left anymore,” he says. 

Thor reaches up, and wipes at his eyes, and the sudden motion chills Bruce to his core. He realizes that he’s never, neverseen Thor cry before - not when Asgard was blasted to rubble, not in the days before Ultron, not - 

He has to stop this. He has to. Seeing Thor cry is like standing on a fault line while the tectonic plates grind beneath him. The world is unstable. He has to mend it somehow. 

Bruce seizes his wrist. “You can’t know that,” he whispers. “Thor, you can’t -” 

“I _saw it_ happen,” Thor says, staring at Bruce’s hand on his wrist. His hands are shaking, and Bruce can feel the tremors running up his arms. “Bruce, I -”  

“You _can’t know that,”_ Bruce repeats, squeezing Thor’s arm tighter. “Thor, a ship that big had to have escape pods. Some of them must have gotten out.” 

Thor stills himself. Physically restrains the shivers running through his body - but Bruce can still feel the tension rippling beneath. God, if Bruce had a little less self-control he would be folding the man into a hug, because nobody needs one more than Thor in this moment. 

“We’ll find them,” says Bruce. 

“How?” Thor whispers. 

And so Bruce is the positive one for once, because that is how this odd friendship works: yin and yang, anger and serenity, grief and joy. Two sides of the same coin. Two fires. Where there is one, there must always be the other. 

With more certainty than he actually feels, he says firmly, “I have a few ideas.” 

 

This is what Bruce is thinking. 

First, they must find the _Statesman._ Somehow. Maybe he’ll track the skies for traces of the Infinity Stones’ energy. After all, the Power Stone blew the _Statesman_ to smithereens; it might show up on scanners. But Bruce looks out the window at the split half-moon and myriad stars, and the thought just vanishes. Out here in upstate New York, the sky is so bright, so clear, that he can see thousands of stars stretched before him. White specks on black; a handful of salt strewn across black velvet. 

Yeah. Space is fucking huge. The blast zone of the _Statesman_ is not. 

So that’s out. 

However it happens, they’ll have to start where the _Statesman_ was blown up. Bruce doesn’t know how bad the damage is - “blown to smithereens” has a whole range of possibilities. Maybe they can find the ship computer, if it’s intact, and see if any escape pods left. Maybe he can send up a probe and scan space for traces of pod exhaust. And from there, they can track the escape pods. 

But they have to find the ship. 

“We have to find the ship,” he says. 

Thor blinks at him slowly, wearily. “Why?” 

“We have to start somewhere, right?” Bruce says. “Start where the pods did, and work out from there.” 

Thor absorbs Bruce’s words in silence. His eyes are still red, his face still damp, though the tears seem to have faded for now. “Okay,” he says softly. “How?” To be honest, Bruce hasn’t thought that far yet. 

Perhaps Thor could use the Bifrost to get there - but if he’s getting it right, the only one with “all-seeing” capabilities was Heimdall. There is no way to precisely find the exact location of the _Statesman._ Not anymore. 

Then a thought occurs to him. He frowns, and looks at Thor. “Didn’t… didn’t Rocket pick you up somewhere?” he says slowly. 

Thor nods. “Him and his crew,” he says. “The Guardians. They…” 

His mismatched eyes widen, as he reaches the same conclusion as Bruce. 

“The _Benatar,”_ they both breathe.  

Thor surges to his feet, and Bruce realizes that his hand has been locked around Thor’s wrist the entire time. He hastily lets go. “We need to go to Titan, then,” Thor says, apparently not noticing. “Find the  _Benatar -_ look at the travel records, to see where they were headed when they picked me up -” 

“And then look at a… a space map,” Bruce says, not caring about the terminology, “and match up the coordinates… and boom. We find the ship.” 

Thor grins, then, and that grin seems to light the whole room on fire. His smiles always do that. Bruce feels something cave in deep, deep within his chest, and smiles helplessly. He can’t help himself. Thor reaches out and puts his hands on Bruce’s shoulders. The weight is comforting; his warmth seeps through the fabric of Bruce’s shirt, and for a moment he is dazzled. Thor is split down the middle, half his body lit by the moon and the other half by the warmly-glowing bedside lamp. His eyes gleam like twin stars.  

“Let’s go,” says Thor. 

The moment fizzles out like air released from a balloon. 

 _“What?”_ Bruce sputters. 

Thor’s still grinning at him - eager to bound off on this journey; perhaps desperate, too, yearning to find something to ice the bruises on his soul. “We’re going to Titan, right?” he says expectantly. “Might as well go now -” 

“Wait - but - _Thor!”_ Bruce sighs. “Now? Seriously? It’s the middle of the night!” 

“It’s 2:35.” 

“Not the point! It’s - why now?” 

“Why not?” Thor says blandly. “I have Stormbreaker. I can use the Bifrost. I know where Titan is - everyone does. Rocket says it’s a disgusting hellhole, and nobody goes there unless they have a really good reason or if it’s a body dump -”  

“You’re really helping me get on board with this, Thor,” Bruce snaps.  

“I thought you said you wanted to go!”  

“Well, yeah, but - not now, I haven’t thought out what to do -” There are too many variables, too many things that could go wrong… Bruce runs a hand through his too short hair and stares out the window. The Milky Way stretches on and on. “I don’t know what’s in the atmosphere, I don’t know if -”  

“Tony was able to breathe it for a couple of days,” Thor points out. “He’s not dead.”  

“And he looks like the ass end of hell, not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Bruce says. He huffs and looks out the window for a long while. Thor just watches him, his hands still squarely on his shoulders.  

Part of him just can’t bear to look back at Thor. Because every inch of him knows that they can’t just go gallivanting off to Titan without thinking this through; Tony’s still sick after what he went through on that planet. If Nebula and that other alien had been hours late in dragging him back to Earth, he would be dead. If not from the alien viruses flooding his system, then from the cold of Titan’s nights that Nebula had told them about. 

But Thor. 

He can’t let him down. 

Thor’s fingers twitch on his shoulders, and the rest of Bruce’s resolve crumbles. He takes a deep, deep breath, sighs, and turns back to Thor. “Allspeak works on text, right?” he says, looking up at him. 

Thor blinks. “Uh - yeah,” he says, briefly flabbergasted. 

Bruce’s eyes skim over the wrinkle between Thor’s brows, the perplexed slant of his lips. He sighs. 

“Great. You’ll be my translator, I won’t be able to read their dashboard,” he says. 

Slowly, like the dawn, a smile creeps over Thor’s face. Bruce reaches up and pats one of the hands on his shoulder. “Let me get my shoes,” he says softly, and detaches Thor’s hands. As he scuttles back to his room, Thor vaults over the bed and snatches up Stormbreaker, tossing it lightly in his hands. 

Thor wears his soul on the outside, and Bruce can practically see him glowing. 

Bruce closes the door behind him and goes back to his room. 

“FRIDAY?” he says to the ceiling. 

 _“Yes, Doctor Banner?”_ the AI says.  

“Can you do me a favor?” 

_“Depends - what do you need?”_

  

A few minutes later, Thor slips into Bruce’s room. A hologram is projected from the ceiling: the crags and dust of Titan, mangled metal and broken glass. Bruce stands in the midst of it and points at the nearest projected wreckage. “That’s the _Benatar,”_ he says. 

Thor paces slowly into the room, his eyes fixed with startling intensity on the hologram. “What is this,” he breathes. 

“I asked FRIDAY to look at Tony’s suit footage from Titan,” Bruce says. “He has a body-cam. This is a reconstruction of where the _Benatar’d_ landed. I, uh…” 

He scratches the back of his neck. “I have no idea how the Bifrost works,” he admits. “But from what I know, you need to be able to see your destination. Or at least have a vague idea. Three D’s, you know.” 

“Yeah,” Thor says. Bruce doesn’t know if he got the _Harry_ _Potter_ reference or not, but at least he’s confirmed the real-world side of it. 

“So -” He spreads his hands, disturbing the light of the hologram; it fluctuates and sparks around him, a mockery of lightning. Thor’s eyes skim over the places where the hologram flickers. 

“Okay,” Thor says, and nods. He shifts his grip on Stormbreaker. “Okay. This… this is perfect. Thank you.” 

“No problem.” Bruce waves a hand, dismissing the hologram, and goes over to the closet to get a coat. He has no idea what the weather on Titan will be like, but better safe than sorry. He likes to wear layers, anyway. 

“You going to be okay?”  

The question freezes Bruce in his tracks. “What do you mean?” he says to the half-open closet door. 

Thor shifts, his leather armor squeaking slightly. “The other guy, I mean,” he says. Bruce makes a face and selects a coat, of medium thickness. He doesn’t want to smother to death. “I don’t know if he liked his last trip through the Bifrost.” 

Right. Heimdall’s dying act, tearing apart the fabric of time and space to chuck Bruce into Stephen Strange’s living room. As one does. “I - I don’t know how he’ll react,” he admits. He shrugs on the coat, taking his time to make sure it fits. A lot of the clothes here don’t fit as well; he’s gained muscle mass, strange as it may seem, from his time on Sakaar. Maybe the only good thing the Hulk has done for him.  

The coat’s a bit tight around the shoulders. Fuck it. Bruce rolls his shoulders one last time and heads for the door. “He’s been quiet for… a while,” he says to Thor. “I think we’ll be fine.” 

“Will we?” 

Bruce nods, and pats Thor on the shoulder. “We will,” he says. “Let’s go.” 

 _“Best of luck to you both,”_ FRIDAY interjects, making them both jump.  

“Thank you, FRIDAY,” Thor says to the ceiling. Bruce glances at him, at the new length of throat exposed by his lifted chin, and hastily turns away. Oh, no. No. He can’t go down this path, not here, not now. There’s a time and place for everything, and the time for - for _ogling_ Thor is not while they’re on a mission. A mission to salvage the ashes of a world. A mission to save Thor from himself. 

“Let’s go,” Thor says, striding down the hall. He hefts Stormbreaker in his hand, as if preparing to carve his way out of the Avengers Compound to reach the outside. Bruce breaks into a jog. 

* * *

  _“Don’t do this to me,” Thor pleads, his voice cracking. “Bruce, don’t do this to me, please -”_

* * *

 The Bifrost is a terrifying tornado of crackling rainbow lightning; the taste of ozone is thick on his tongue. Wind whistles around them. He squints up the tunnel of light, trying to see its end. The Hulk is mercifully silent. 

When Bruce dips a bit too close to the side of the Bifrost, its shattered-glass brilliance surging like ice water around his hand, Thor lunges and wraps an arm around him. Bruce nearly pushes him away - but then he thinks of Sakaar, and how Thor got there, and understands Thor’s precautions. 

He’ll let it slide. 

It’s not like he’s complaining. 

 

Titan looks and smells like a moldy Cheeto puff. The way the dust and debris crunch beneath Bruce’s feet doesn’t help to dispel the thought. 

They slog across the wreckage of the alien world. Thor surges ahead, scanning the horizon for the  _Benatar,_ while Bruce follows at a more sedate pace behind. He is glad he brought a decent coat; the chill of Titan’s winds slices right through his clothes. The novelty of standing on an alien planet still hasn’t worn off, and the discoverer in Bruce’s soul is hammering on the inside of his rib cage, begging to be let out. The orange sky burns above. 

Thor’s foot punches through the hull of a rusted-out ship, and he yanks it out with a curse. The dust rising from the opening reminds Bruce that he is walking on the bones of a civilization, and his good mood evaporates. 

“You alright?” he says. 

Thor nods tersely and rolls up the cuff of his pants. No cuts or scrapes; good. Bruce doesn’t have any tetanus shots on him. The booster that Thor’d been given before Ultron has probably worn off by now. “All good,” Thor says.  

Bruce follows Thor over the metal hills.  

 

Soon the _Benatar_ looms before them, and they both cringe in sympathy. A massive hunk of unidentifiable metal has fallen onto the ship’s back half; the engines are mangled and useless. No wonder Tony and Nebula didn’t come back in it. “Ouch,” Bruce whispers, jamming his hands into his pockets.  

He knows nothing about alien ships, but the _Benatar_ looks beautiful. Must have looked beautiful. It’s a shame that it’s destroyed. If Tony had been healthy enough to repair it, Bruce thinks, he would have done so in a heartbeat. 

“Bruce?” 

Thor is staring at him.  

“You alright?” he says. 

“Yeah. Just - just thinking,” Bruce says, and climbs down to the small depression the _Benatar_ rests in. 

“Help me in the cockpit?” 

“Sure,” Thor says. He leaps down from the top of the twisted metal, landing on the ground below and walking off without a single problem. Bruce heaves a sigh and runs after him. 

 

Six chairs. One dusted with pollen, one coated in animal hair. The other pilot chairs look more-or-less normal, though the presence of an old Zune wired into one denotes Peter Quill’s claim. Bruce slips past Thor and hovers over Quill’s chair. He desperately tries to ignore the way the empty chairs gnaw at him. He can see them in his peripheral vision. Empty chairs, empty tables. Haunting him. 

Thor gently puts a hand on Bruce’s back, resting between his shoulder blades. “I can look it up for you,” he says quietly. 

“You sure?” Bruce says, already scrambling out of the way.  

“Yeah.” Thor slips into Quill’s chair, unbothered by the idea of sitting in a dead man’s seat, and hunches over the display buttons. Each is marked with alien letters. Bruce is so, so glad that the Allspeak works on text. Thor hums thoughtfully, wiggles his fingers, and presses one. 

The Zune plugged into the armchair turns on, and Bruce flinches. Thor doesn’t notice what he’s done, not until some rolling piano notes and a smooth voice flows from the speakers:  

_“Tonight… I’m gonna have myself a real good time… I feel ali-i-i-ive!”_

“Bruce, what is this?” Thor says numbly. 

“You hit the button for music,” Bruce says. 

_“And the world…. I’ll turn it inside out - yeah…”_

“I thought I hit the button for travel records!” 

“Well, apparently you hit the button for _music_ records - how accurate is Allspeak?” 

Thor starts randomly mashing buttons. “It’s… very literal, I’m afraid,” he admits. “The only reason why I can speak like a Midgardian -” _smack “-_ is because -” _whap “-_ I spent a year with -” _bam “-_ Tony Stark.” For fuck’s sake. Bruce nearly groans, but doesn’t think that Thor would take that kindly. Of course Thor got the Urban Dictionary slang treatment from Tony, but they didn’t have that for space. Thor probably got a colloquialism mixed up. 

_“Don’t - stop - me - nowwww…”_

Thor appears very close to breaking the actual control panel. Bruce says, “Don’t - don’t do that. Just press them gently.” 

“I _am_ pressing them gently, it’s not _working,”_ Thor snaps, and slams his fist down on a button.  

 _“Cause I’m havin’ a good time -_ **_havin’ a good time!"_**

Lights blink, there’s a soft whirring, and a holographic map sparks to life above the control panel. Bruce can see circles, hexagons, and tiny dots whirling, perhaps stars and planets. He has no idea what the hexagons might symbolize. 

He reaches out and swipes through the hologram. Stars dart through his fingers. “Wow,” he murmurs.  

But Thor doesn’t respond. Bruce looks at him, and sees him staring through the hologram screen - as if watching a movie projected at the front of the ship, or looking back into the past. Watching a memory.  

His eyes are empty.  

God, the music really doesn’t match this moment. Bruce reaches over and jabs what he hopes is the correct button, and the music shuts off. “Hey,” he says softly. Thor jerks and looks at him, his eyes still seeing something beyond the time they exist in. “Can you find it?” he says. “Their records of the trip - what coordinates they plugged in?” 

Thor nods. “Sure,” he says, and turns back to the screen. His fingers fly through the sparks of the hologram, opening submenus and swiping through windows. The jagged letters of alien languages flicker across his skin. 

“Here.” 

Thor scrolls down and pushes something, and suddenly a snarled dotted line appears on the screen. A map to the stars. “Here are the records of their travels, the day they found me.” 

His finger disturbs the hologram at one end of the line. “That’s Titan,” he says. “They stopped at Knowhere -” He points at an amorphous blob in the upper right. “And…” 

Thor pushes a few buttons. A tiny arrow pops up at a kink in the dotted line. At that point, the Guardians dropped out of warp speed, and began to plow through the wreckage of the Asgardian ship. “That’s it,” Thor says quietly. “Those are our coordinates.” 

“Right,” Bruce says.  

They stare at the hologram in silence for a while. Then Thor stands, and quickly strides away from the cockpit. Bruce slides into the empty seat and grabs his Starkphone to take a picture. 

While Bruce tries to get a clear shot of the coordinates - something about the hologram doesn’t register on the camera, and it takes a few tries - a Nazgul’s shriek of tearing metal rings through the ship. The  _Benatar_ abruptly pitches forward, and Bruce’s face nearly smashes into the dashboard. He puts out a hand to catch himself; the music switches back on, and Freddie Mercury is still singing. 

Outside, a great pillar of metal falls into the wreckage, kicking up massive clouds of orange dust. The ground shakes. Thor crashes to the ground outside, Stormbreaker crackling with lightning. And Bruce stares. 

So they’re taking the _Benatar_ back with them. Salvaging memory, bringing something home. Rocket’s going to have a field day. The thought hadn’t even occurred to Bruce, that Rocket might want to have the ship back, but Thor had clearly thought it was necessary. Bruce inhales slowly, and exhales, watching the wreckage settle. 

Freddie Mercury’s voice fades out, replaced by the opening chords of 10cc’s _I’m Not in Love._ Bruce takes that for the omen it is and looks deliberately at the hologram. The camera finally focuses, and he takes a picture. 

Then when the impulse seizes him, he quickly zooms in on Thor and takes another one. Shoulders straight, head lifted, sun just so and eyes fixed on the horizon. Perfect. 

God, he’s hopeless. 

 

So in the end, they return to Earth with the _Benatar_ in tow. Bruce stays in the ship, clinging to Peter Quill’s captain’s chair, and Thor flies along outside. The fractured-prism glow of the Bifrost flickers madly on the walls, like the tunnel scene from _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory._   

It’s a relief to have solid ground beneath him once more. Dawn has barely broken on Earth, and the dimmest glimmer of morning lights the underbellies of the clouds. It’s early enough that the stars are still out. Bruce stumbles out of the hatch, clinging to its edges for dear life; Thor jumps down and lands beside him.  

“That went well,” he sighs, holding out a fist and grinning. In a moment of levity that surprises him, Bruce smacks Thor’s outstretched fist with his palm - just like on Sakaar. Thor’s eyes widen a bit in surprise, and they grin softly at each other. 

From a distance, claws click on the asphalt.  

Bruce looks up to see Rocket sprinting towards them on all fours - _all fours,_ willing to sacrifice his dignity for this. He looks too much like the creature he was carved from, and the sight makes Bruce’s chest hurt. 

Rocket skids to a halt, pebbles kicking up around his feet. “What the fuck?” he pants, staring wildly at Thor. Bruce is invisible, as far as the raccoon is concerned, and Bruce is fine with that. Rocket has no reason to turn to him. “What the _fuck_ did you - where was it?” 

Thor’s face is strangely soft, as he sits cross-legged on the ground in front of Rocket. “It was on Titan,” he says gently. “We could not completely save the engines, but we took back what we could -” 

“Why?” 

Rocket’s voice is just above a breath, thin as the vacuum of space. “You had your reasons, what were they?” the raccoon whispered. 

And it is so _selfish,_  to say that they wanted to bring Rocket’s home back just for its computer, for the map to the stars stored in its database - but Bruce says it anyway. “We needed the records of your trip when you found Thor,” he says. Rocket’s eyes flash towards him - grim, shrewd. So he knows. “And -” 

He pauses, tries to summon some ghost of empathy. It’s not hard, when the memory of being unmoored and unbelonging is still close. Six years ago, after all, he was in the slums of Calcutta. “It’s your ship,” he says softly. A bit awkwardly. “It’s your home.” 

“Yeah,” Rocket replies, just as quiet. “Yeah, it was.”  

And without a word, he walks between them to board the _Benatar._

Thor watches him leave. “Did we do the right thing?” he asks, as the hatch hisses shut.  

Bruce’s hand skims over the phone in his pocket. “I hope so,” he replies. 

Shadows stir in the cockpit; he can see, through the scratched surface of the viewport, Rocket clambering into his seat. He sits there for a long, long time, simply staring out the viewport.  

Then his tiny hands slowly lift to seize the controls. If Bruce looks close enough, he can see the raccoon’s shoulders shaking. He turns away. “Let’s go back,” he says to Thor, gently brushing his shoulder. “Give it a rest.” 

But Thor’s hand is already on Stormbreaker’s handle. “We brought the ship back,” he says stubbornly, standing up. “Now we can go find -” 

“Thor, I can’t breathe in space,” Bruce says bluntly. “And I doubt you can, either.” 

Thor grimaces. 

“When Rocket’s ready to talk, we’ll ask to borrow an escape pod,” Bruce continues. “And some spacesuits. Unless you know how to use the Bifrost based on coordinates alone.” 

Grudgingly, Thor shakes his head. His hand tightens on Stormbreaker’s handle, and Bruce doesn’t quite think that Thor’s listening to him. He reaches for Thor’s wrist. Thor needs touch to ground him sometimes. Pull the energy from him, send it somewhere else, like a lightning rod. “It’s going to be okay,” he reminds him. “Thor -” 

Thor is shaking slightly under his hand.  

“When was the last time you ate?” Bruce says, alarmed. The grimace on Thor’s face says that he hasn’t eaten recently enough. He begins to drag Thor back to the compound. “Okay, come on. We had a long day. We’re going to go back in, and eat some breakfast, and maybe take a nap. And then we’ll bother Rocket for a pod sometime later.” 

“Yes, sir,” Thor mutters. Bruce rolls his eyes. 

He doesn’t realize until they hit the communal kitchen, and almost run into Steve on his way out with some coffee, that he’s still holding Thor’s wrist. Steve’s eyes flick down, then quickly up, as if embarrassed, and he scuttles down the hall without a word. 

Bruce lets go of Thor’s wrist as if burnt, and heads right for the fridge.  

* * *

_Bruce reaches out. The stars swirl around his fingertips, and he closes his eyes._

_The Hulk stirs beneath his skin._

_“Bruce, no!”_

* * *

Bruce is woken from his nap by a door slamming. “Hey, you,” drawls a vaguely familiar voice. 

“What?” Bruce groans, lifting his head from the pillow. His neck aches; he must have slept on it funny. God, the rest of the day is going to suck. 

Something is tossed on the foot of his bed. “You gonna find your ship tonight?” 

Bruce blinks away the sleep and sits up. Rocket is standing at the foot of his bed, only his head visible. “What?” he says again. 

Rocket sighs and drags his hands down his face. “Ay yi yi,” he groans. “Terrans. Fucking hopeless when you’re tired, good grief.” He nudges the small package on his bed towards Bruce. “Spacesuit,” he says. “Stick it on your back and smack the button, and it’ll cover you up. In case you need it.” 

Bruce’s mouth falls open, and he snatches up the suit. In its compact form, it fits snugly in the palm of his hand. “Thanks,” he says numbly.  

“And we got you a ship, too.” 

He looks up. _“What?”_ What he means is _why;_ why do this? Why be so kind to us? Why step away from your own grief, your own guilt, to help soothe ours? 

Rocket looks back at him stoically. “C’mon, I know ya got more vocabulistics than that,” the raccoon drawls. “Yes, we got you a fuckin’ ship.” 

“Oh - that’s great,” says Bruce. “But, uh, neither Thor or I know how to fly one.” 

“Thor’s been learning. We got that covered,” Rocket says simply.  

“You do?” 

“Yeah. Well, not me. I ain’t involved.” 

“What -” 

“One more time,” Rocket says, waving his finger in Bruce’s face. “You say that word one more freakin’ time, and I’m gonna shove this suit down your throat.” 

“Sorry.” Bruce clears his throat. “So - who’s teaching Thor?” 

 

Here’s the thing. 

Nebula had not expected to survive her encounter with Thanos. And even if she had, she thought she would just hitch a ride with the Guardians to get off the planet. So she’d crash-landed her ship into Titan’s surface and immediately gone off to kick ass. 

Her ship wasn’t salvageable. And when the _Benatar_ was destroyed by a falling piece of debris, she and Tony were out of options. 

So she’d crossed her fingers and called in a favor. 

“Dropped out of the sky like something out of _Independence Day,_ ” Tony had said of their savior, during the debrief when he’d come back to Earth. “Didn’t expect to see this scrawny fucker at the helm, but you know. Space churns out some weird people.”  

He then turned to the alien at his side and added, “I say that with all the love in my heart, of course.” 

“Fuck you,” said Kraglin Obfonteri. But he was smiling a snaggletoothed grin reminiscent of a shark, and he good-naturedly elbowed Tony in the side. Tony grinned back. 

The Xandarian Ravager Captain is staying on Earth for as long as he can; about half his crew got dusted, and the other hundred or so need something to distract them from the destruction Thanos wrought. The allure of a forbidden planet, coupled with the wrath of Tony Stark and Wakanda if they put any toes out of line, is enough to keep them both entertained and well-behaved. Only the ones that can pass for human are allowed out; the rest are introduced to the internet, in the hopes that it will keep them busy. (It does.) 

Kraglin is a constant presence in the Compound. His red arrow dances through the halls, looping around ankles and playfully slicing parts through hair. He and Clint sometimes have shooting competitions. Those are such a spectacle to watch, they could open them to the public and start charging.  

Steve doesn’t trust Kraglin. Rhodey doesn’t trust Kraglin, but he’s getting there. At first Bruce found it hard to accept a space pirate into their fold, but the alien had saved Tony’s life. And Thor trusts him. So Bruce does, too. 

 

Kraglin’s ship is enormous. Stand the _Hammerhand_ on its nose, and it could easily be as tall as the Chrysler Building. It’s a small city. A ship the same model as the _Benatar,_ except it’s painted a rich green and silver, is parked on the ground outside the massive ship. Bruce strides up to the smaller ship, taking time to admire it. Its sharp lines are reminiscent of a sleek sports car; the veins of silver along its body and wings streak like lightning.  

Bruce walks over to the open hatch and climbs in. 

Kraglin leans jauntily against the wall, one arm propped over his head as the other gestures at the dashboard. Thor smoothly goes through the motions of powering up the ship, flicking buttons and pulling on levers. Bruce watches, amazed. 

“Okay,” says Kraglin, “now hit the initializer.” 

Thor slams his hand on a giant red button, and the ship whirs to life. Kraglin gives him a grin and punches him in the shoulder. “See, you got it,” he says, as the ship lifts slightly off the ground. “Right - I’mma get off, so you can get goin’. I put in the coordinates already, so just get outta the stratosphere and head for the warp gate… here.” He calls up a map with a wave of his hand, pointing at a hexagonal shape. “That should spit you out somewhere outside Arkyllis, and then it’s a straight shot.” 

“Thank you,” Thor says sincerely. 

Bruce comes closer, trying to get a better look, and trips over a loose panel in the ground. The noise makes both Kraglin and Thor flinch, and they turn to him. “Oh, hi, Bruce,” Thor says cheerfully, over the whine of the engines. “Mister Kraglin taught me how to fly a N-ship.” 

“M-ship,” Kraglin corrects, with a tense grimace. “And it’s just Kraglin.” 

“Yes, of course. Sorry about that.” 

“No worries.” 

Kraglin strides away, his long red coat flaring behind him. “You got your suit?” he says, eyes flickering over him. Bruce nods. “Good. If ya get stranded or need help, press here -” He points at a button. “And put in this code.” Kraglin fishes a grimy scrap of paper and a pen from his pocket, and scribbles down something that doesn’t make much sense to Bruce. Hopefully it’ll be legible, if he can get a keyboard for reference. “I’ll send a ship out to get ya. Good luck.”  

He gives Bruce a sharp nod and hops out of the hatch, striding back to the main ship. At this angle, the  _Hammerhand’s_ bulk blocks the sun. Bruce watches him go, confused beyond belief - and yet, he understands somehow, why someone who’s never met either of them was willing to help. The Power Stone was on Xandar, after all. Kraglin’s home planet. And half his crew was gone. He’d lost a lot, too. He would understand. 

Bruce slips into the seat next to Thor, buckling himself in. All seatbelts are the same in concept. “So, we’re going now?”  

Thor nods, and pulls one of the levers towards him. The ship judders to life and slowly rises from the ground, nose pointed towards the stars. 

 

His time on Sakaar has dulled his wonder. There is no idealism left in his forays to the stars; Bruce knows that every inhabited planet is just like Earth, rife with conflict and misunderstanding. Every planet is just like Earth - wrecked by Thanos’s fateful snap. 

The warp gate is interesting, though. Like an artificial, constantly-running Bifrost, vibrating through the spaces between planets. A gateway to the stars. It looms ahead of them now, a hexagon carved into space; still quite a ways away, but close enough to make him stare. 

“Do you want to try?” 

The broken silence startles him in his chair. Thor is looking at him, his gaze piercing, inquisitive, and just slightly nervous. He looks built from the half-light of the stars. 

“Try what?” Bruce says blankly. 

“Flying the ship,” Thor says, and his fingers linger over a small green-and-blue button. “We’ve got a while before we hit the jump point - want to fly us there?” 

Bruce stares at him. Thor’s eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted in an eager smile. 

“I know none of your PhD’s are in flying spaceships,” the god quips, “but this is easy.” 

“If you say so,” says Bruce, and he settles back into his seat. He didn’t realize he had been leaning in. 

Thor grins and pushes the green-and-blue button, swapping the controls over to Bruce’s chair. He instinctively grabs the controls, settling his fingers into the indents on the levers. It’s a lot like driving stick, he realizes, except he doesn’t have to manually wrestle a lever to shift gears. Just buttons.  

“Okay, pull the lever your right hand is on,” Thor says softly in his ear. 

Bruce flinches, and Thor backs away slightly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. He’s now standing behind Bruce, looming over his chair. His presence is comforting, though a bit surprising. “Pull the lever towards you, and then steer with the wheel thing. Speed adjustor is that pedal on the ground.” 

“Pull the lever, Kronk,” Bruce mutters.  

“What?” 

Right. Space alien. He’s surprised Tony hasn’t already covered that base. “Okay, when we get back, we’re watching that movie,” Bruce says, and pulls the lever towards him. It moves a lot quicker than he expected to, slamming backwards, and in his panic he stomps on the accelerator.  

The ship shoots forward. Thor yelps like a startled dog; his arms flail wildly, and one loops around Bruce’s chest. Bruce slowly eases off on the accelerator and grabs the steering… thing, which looks and acts much more like an airplane yoke than a wheel, and rights their course. 

“Nice,” he breathes. Honestly, it’s a lot like flying a Quinjet, from what he can remember from that one disastrous lesson in the year before Ultron. The controls are similar, but there’s a hell of a lot of other buttons, and for a moment he feels briefly overwhelmed. Crushed by the sudden influx. 

Thor clears his throat, and his arm shifts around Bruce’s chest. He realizes suddenly that Thor’s been practically hugging him this entire time. He is half-kneeling, half-standing, awkwardly pressed against the back of Bruce’s chair. Bruce swallows, his throat suddenly dry, and steps on the accelerator again. 

“You alright?” Thor asks.  

His voice is a low rumble in Bruce’s ear, and it makes the hair on Bruce’s arms stand up. He shivers, and prays that Thor doesn’t notice. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I’m good, it’s just… it’s a lot.” He takes one hand off the yoke and gestures vaguely at the expanse of stars beyond.  

Thor hums softly. 

Bruce swallows, and blurts out, “I’m glad you’re here.” 

Thor’s arm stiffens around him. But after a brief moment, Thor lowers his head to rest on the back of Bruce’s chair. “I’m glad, too,” he whispers.  

With his free hand, Bruce reaches up and gently squeezes Thor’s wrist. Thor breathes in, and Bruce turns to look at him. Thor’s face is very close to his - so close that Bruce can see the edges of the scarring around his eye, can see the minute differences in color between his irises. Thor has a small scar just above his lip. He’s never noticed that before. 

The light of the warp gate gleams along his cheekbones. Oh, how he glows. 

Then Thor clears his throat and draws away, sliding back into his own seat on the other side of the cockpit. He pushes the green-and-blue button; the lights on Bruce’s side go out. Without a word, he powers the ship up, punches a glowing purple button, and sends them hurling into warp space. 

Bruce can’t tell if the weight he feels is from acceleration, or from the absence of Thor’s arm around his chest. 

* * *

  _“Bruce, I’ve got you -”_

_Bruce blinks wearily, the stars flickering like dust motes in his vision. He is dazed; he cannot speak. Thor lifts his arm - lifts Stormbreaker, its head silhouetted against the light of the nearest star._

_“I’m sorry,” his voice says in Bruce’s ear. “If this goes wrong, Bruce, I’m so, so sorry…”_

* * *

 Arkyllis looks like a Palantir: an obsidian globe swirled with white, shimmering like a polished cue ball in the light from its twin suns. Bruce leans forward to stare at it. Fire flickers on its surface; volcanic, most likely.  

Then they veer away from Arkyllis, driving forth into the stars. Thor’s grip is tight on the controls; the air is charged with something like anticipation, something just short of fear.  

A spark ripples off his hand and into the dashboard. 

Bruce clears his throat awkwardly. “I can take over if you want,” he offers. It’s like they’re trading off driving on a long road trip, but here, the weariness is of the soul and not the body. Thor’s fists clench on the controls - but miraculously, he lets go, and punches a button. “Thanks,” Bruce says, as his side of the ship hums to life; the gift of electricity surging through it, illuminating it. Thor says nothing - merely retreats into the back of the ship. 

Bruce understands why when the first body hits the viewport. 

“Oh, God,” he whispers. 

 

Their ship drifts through the wreckage of the _Statesman -_ ash, metal, bodies. The sight leaves a deep ache in Bruce’s chest. The starlight singes the edges of each piece of metal; it illuminates each corpse. At times, large pieces of debris hurtle past them, and Bruce jerks the yoke to keep them from smashing into their ship. 

Thor has not come back.  

Bruce looks at Thor’s empty chair, and at the frozen corpses swirling in the ether. Bizarrely, he thinks,  _Alderaan. It’s like Alderaan._ And it is - both are wreckages of a world; both left royalty as sole survivors, sole carriers of a heavy legacy. Space claims all. 

A body with shoulder-length black hair and blue-black clothes spirals past. Bruce’s eyes track the corpse, a vague sense of familiarity tugging at his stomach. It knocks against the wing of the M-ship and, presumably, continues on. 

Then he realizes. 

“Oh, fuck,” he whispers, and leaps from his seat. He yanks the collapsed spacesuit from his pocket and slams it onto his back, pressing the button - and sure enough, just like Rocket said, the thing unfolds and creeps over his body like Tony’s nanosuit. 

His heart is pounding, and he can feel the Hulk stirring inquisitively at the back of his mind. “Stay down, we’re headed to space,” he orders. 

 _Why?_ mutters the Hulk. 

“Because,” Bruce starts, and then stops. Partly out of shock that the Hulk actually responded; partly because he doesn’t quite know _why_ . Just an instinct, a niggling hope, dozens of _what if’s_ hammering at his heart. It doesn’t have a name. It’s more of a vague impression: a half-glimpsed dream on its way out; dusty memories. A desire to set things _right._

Would having his brother’s body to bury help Thor? Or would it make it worse? 

But the first door to the airlock hisses shut behind him, leaving him in the airless chamber between two voids. He has no choice, now.  

“No reason,” he says firmly, keying open the airlock. “Now just stay down. Don’t try anything. Please.”  

 _Fine._  

He crawls out of the airlock, into the eternal fall of space, and clings to the outside of the ship for dear life. A length of cable hangs from the suit’s belt, with magnetic clamps on either end; he attaches one to his suit and one to the top of the ship, and pushes off towards the corpse. It’s caught on the M-ship’s tail; a scrap of clothing is all that separates it from the void. 

He grabs for the corpse’s ankle and accidentally knocks it loose; the momentum shoves the body off the ship, and the tiny scrap of fabric tears. “Damn it,” Bruce snarls, and kicks off the ship to grab the body. He tries to ignore the nauseating feeling of weightlessness; hopefully the Hulk is fine with it. God, he hopes so. 

He misses his first grab. Bruce swipes again, his suit-encased fingers swiping over the corpse’s side; it rotates slowly in midair, presenting its face to Bruce. 

His blood runs cold. 

It’s not Loki. It’s a woman, her hair and eyes brown, features too solid and body too slim to be Thor’s brother’s, even in other forms. Even her clothes aren’t what Bruce thought they were; the black is actually a deep brown. Ice crystals coat her face.  

“Fuck,” he breathes, staring at the woman. Her body rotates away from him once more, crystallized features and bruise-purple lips vanishing, and turns end-over-end like a punted football into the stars. 

There’s a crackling in his ear, and suddenly Thor’s voice is filling his head. _“Bruce, where the hell are you?”_ he says. His voice is harsh with panic, and Bruce feels guilty for putting that there.  

“I’m outside,” Bruce says. He tugs on the tether and reels himself back in, back towards the ship. “I - I thought I saw... someone. Turned out it was a fluke.” 

 _“You’re okay?”_  

“I’m okay. I’ve got a tether, and I’m coming back in -” 

It’s then that the piece of debris hurtles past, right into Bruce’s tether.  

It snaps like uncooked spaghetti; the initial tug sends him rocketing towards the ship and he just, _just_ barely misses it. Bruce screams in panic as the underbelly of the ship passes too close to his face. 

He doesn’t see the massive chunk of metal before him until it’s too late.  

 _“Bruce!”_  

He slams right into it, and it punches the breath from his lungs. He goes spiraling off at a different angle. The suit does little to cushion his head, and suddenly his vision is swimming. Space doubles, folds upon itself; the stars swirl madly above his head. Bruce groans, feeling his head throb.  

 _“Bruce Banner, I swear to the Norns,”_ Thor growls, _“you’re not going to leave me - not here, not now!”_

The hatch opens, and suddenly Thor is surging forth with the desperate rage of a man about to lose everything. Fresh guilt sweeps through him, through the haze of pain. 

 _“I’ve got you, okay?”_ Thor shouts.  

He brandishes Stormbreaker and flails, helplessly, in the vacuum of space. No gravity; no purchase. _“I’ve got you, Bruce!”_ But Bruce drifts, further and further away. His lips twitch, forming Thor’s name, but in his delirium no sound comes out. His breath fogs the inside of the suit. 

 _“No,_ no! _Don’t do this to me,”_ Thor pleads, his voice cracking. _“Bruce, don’t do this to me, please -”_

Bruce reaches out. The stars swirl around his fingertips, and he closes his eyes. The Hulk stirs beneath his skin. He opens his eyes again, with difficulty. Space is dim; even the nearest star seems shrouded, like a lampshade. But before him, he can see Thor - his skin rippling with lightning, his soul on the outside. Thor is a star in his own right. 

 _“Bruce, don’t give in,”_ Thor demands. _“Talk to me. Come on, Bruce, say something!”_  

Bruce blinks wearily, the stars flickering like dust motes in his vision. He is dazed; he cannot speak. All that escapes him is a soft moan. Thor lifts his arm - lifts Stormbreaker, its head silhouetted against the light of the nearest star. 

 _“I’m sorry,”_ his voice says in Bruce’s ear. _“If this goes wrong, Bruce, I’m so, so sorry… But you have to catch it. Do you hear me?”_ His voice rings desperately, and it cuts through the fog of deluded pain. A concussion. He probably has a concussion. God, this is awful. Still, he finds the strength to lift his arm and give Thor a thumbs-up, praying he sees it. 

Thor lifts Stormbreaker one last time and throws. 

It almost hurtles past Bruce, but he has the presence of mind to grab its handle. He can feel the wood through the suit, solid and reassuring beneath his fingers. It tugs on him. Stormbreaker slowly tugs Bruce back to the ship, and he holds onto it for dear life, every inch of him screaming with pain. Thor’s lightning-clad arms are outstretched. 

They crash together among the stars, Thor’s arms wrapped tight around him. Stormbreaker’s momentum shoves them back towards the open hatch. 

 

The return of gravity makes Bruce’s stomach lurch again, and that’s nearly enough to return his senses to him. Thor is a blur of panic. Bruce tries to find an icepack, fails, and settles for leaning his head against the cool metal. His chest heaves with nervous breaths; with his feet firmly on the floor of the ship, he now realizes how close he was to death. How close he was to following the Asgardians into the frozen stars. 

Thor suddenly grabs him and crowds him against the wall. “Don’t ever, _ever_ do that to me again,” Thor says desperately, both hands locked around Bruce’s wrists. “Bruce -” 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce insists. The intense pain in Thor’s face terrifies him; his eyes are wild, barely human, and his skin still crackles with lightning. “I really am, I just - it was a stupid thing to do, I know -” 

Thor shakes his head wildly, and pushes Bruce into his pilot’s chair. “No,” he breathes. “Bruce - you don’t get it, you don’t _know_ -” 

“What -” 

“Bruce, you’re all I have!” 

Bruce goes still. Thor is crying now, and Bruce realizes with a pang just how _stupid_ he had been. “You’re all I have left,” Thor chokes out, tears streaming down his face. “You’re the only - you’re the only one that - I can’t lose you. I _can’t_.” 

Tears sting Bruce’s eyes. He reaches forward and pulls Thor into a hug, ignoring how his head throbs, because damn it, Thor needs this. He needed a hug in his bedroom, then, and Bruce regrets that he hadn’t given him a hug sooner, because _Thor needs this._ The thrill of Thor’s warmth against his body is an afterthought; all he can feel is Thor’s tears dripping onto his neck, trickling under his collar and down his back. 

Thor sags completely into him. He’s practically in Bruce’s lap, now, clinging to him like a frightened child. Bruce rearranges his legs slightly when the weight becomes uncomfortable, and oh, that was a mistake. Thor is _right_ up against him. No longer an afterthought, then. “You’re okay,” Bruce says, squeezing him. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here.” 

And before he can stop himself, he presses a soft kiss to Thor’s beard-fuzzed jaw.  

Thor inhales, and for a moment the tears stop. He leans away and stares at Bruce. His damp, mismatched eyes are wide with shock. Bruce has a strange moment of deja vu, seeing Thor’s face: half-lit by the burning stars on one side, and the cool light of the ship’s interior on the other.  

“Sorry,” he whispers. 

“Don’t be,” Thor whispers back.  

Relief crashes through him, and Bruce pulls Thor against him, giving him a real, honest kiss. Though he’s the one to initiate it - and damn, that feels good - Thor’s fear-fueled passion far surpasses anything Bruce can summon in this moment. He presses him into the pilot’s chair, hands cupping Bruce’s jaw, and devours him. Not slow and passionate, not desperately fast - but deliberate, hungry, as if every second is precious and better fucking count. If Bruce lets out a moan of sweet, pining relief, well - that’s between him and God.  

This god. This beautiful god, whose soul gleams in his eyes and crackles from his hands; who loves both just enough and far too much; who is older than the bones of Bruce’s civilization, but young enough to still fear death, to fear being alone. 

Bruce pulls him closer. That makes two of them. Two sides of the same coin. 

 

It subsides to the point that they’re just holding each other; Thor’s weight is comforting on top of him, sending warmth into his very bones. His breath and beard tickles Bruce’s neck. One hand is still locked around Bruce’s wrists. 

After a few moments of silence, Thor heaves a great contented sigh and slides off of the chair, until he’s leaning against one of Bruce’s legs. Something electric shoots along his spine and pools in his stomach, at the sight of Thor’s head between his knees; seeking distraction, he gently runs a hand through Thor’s soft hair. He quickly realizes that does not help. Jesus fucking wept, that does _not_ help at all. 

He takes a deep breath and looks out the viewport. The sight beyond is enough to calm his libido, which has been missing and presumed dead for two and a half years. Great chunks of metal and rigid bodies still clot the vacuum beyond. God. Bruce has almost forgotten why they were here: to give Thor a visual anchor for the Bifrost, so they could come here and send probes, and maybe track the exhaust from the escape pods to find them.  

But all of that had become an afterthought when that first body hit the windshield. 

Bruce makes up his mind. That isn’t their mission anymore. 

Thor leans his head against his leg. Bruce gently strokes his hair one last time and reaches for the comm unit. He punches in the code from the scrap of paper in his pocket. 

“Hey, uh, Kraglin?” he says. 

His voice echoes through space, bouncing off the stars and pinging to Earth. It is silent for a while, and Bruce fears that he’s fucked something up. But then - 

_“Yeah? What’s up?”_

Kraglin’s weasely voice crackles through the comm, and Bruce heaves a quiet sigh of relief. “Yeah, hi. Um. Could you do us a favor?” 

_“Depends. What do you need?”_

  

A couple of hours later, dozens of ships roar into the space around them, the stars glimmering on their myriad wings. They ring the wreckage of the _Statesman._ Thor stands to watch them, aghast. After a few minutes of staring, he collapses into his chair, watching the M-ships deploy pods and search the debris. “Why,” he whispers. 

Bruce squeezes his shoulder. “Because they’re your people,” he says softly. “We’ll bring them back.” _We’ll bring them all back._ “We’ll bury them.” 

“We don’t bury,” Thor croaks. “There’s… um. There’s boats. And rites.” 

“Then we’ll do those,” Bruce says gently, and turns Thor’s chair so they’re facing each other. “They deserve better than this,” he says. 

Thor nods slowly, his face crumpling. “They do,” he says softly, his voice husky with tears. “Oh, they do.”  

Thor’s arm suddenly snakes around Bruce’s waist, and he pulls him close. Bruce stumbles and puts a hand on Thor’s shoulder to steady himself. “Thank you,” Thor breathes into his stomach, and the tickle of his breath makes Bruce’s hair stand up. “Thank you, for this. For believing.” 

“Of course,” Bruce says. 

Thor looks at him, his mismatched eyes gleaming darkly in the cockpit’s dim light. “I mean it,” he says. “I  _mean it.”_

“I know. I’ve got you.” 

Thor swallows once, and reaches up for Bruce’s face. Intoxicated by the look in Thor’s eyes - the relief, the fear, and oh, the _want -_ Bruce slips forward to kiss him again. He’s half in Thor’s lap and half out of it, nearly falling to the floor, but he doesn’t care. 

In the days to come, they will return to Earth. They will perform the Asgardian funeral rites; they will send off the fallen. Bruce will build a probe to scan for the escape pods, and perhaps they’ll take this ship out here again. Or use the Bifrost to come here instantaneously. In the days to come, they will keep moving, keep pushing, keep hoping. 

But for now it’s just them. Them and the stars, silent sentinels, watching over them.  

The M-ships dart through the stars beyond, bringing the Asgardians home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated. If you want to reread while listening to a playlist that's all classical music, [I made this Spotify playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/user/dtw172966pmcf2qabxramdtpr/playlist/1eIjpFz25ZThwQiGkOiIt4) It has some overlap with the playlist I made for Petrichor, but that's okay - some of the songs are just perfect. Thanks for reading!!


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